Thame swimmers bring home memorial championship

SATURDAY, October 15, saw a squad fromThame Swimming Club head for the Natalie Barry Open Meet at Bletchley Swimming Club – and come home as champions!

Natalie Barry was a young, fit and healthy Bletchley & District Swimming Club swimmer who represented her club many times. After a normal day and evening she went to bed like she did every other night but sadly this was her last day as she did not wake from her sleep – so to honour her short life the Natalie Barry Gala was put together.

Four other clubs joined Thame at Bletchley for a great day of competitive swimming. With many of Thame’s swimmers having competed a few weeks prior, there was a lot of talk about pb’s and medals. With determination in their eyes, one by one they took to the blocks. With many of them taking seconds off their entry times it was great to see so many smiling faces in camp Thame. Notable swims were evident from many of our swimmers with a special mention to Matthew Stamp for taking a fabulous 11 seconds off his 100m breaststroke PB time.

With the medal table growing race by race, Thame found themselves in second place over all by the end of Session two. As Session three got under way the, swimmers did what they do best and that’s swim their hearts out. As the last event of the day got underway, two of Thame’s Group two swimmers took to the starting blocks for the 50m freestyle grudge match.
Murray Wakefield and Szymon Siuta were entered with almost identical entry times and thus were placed side-by-side in Lanes six and seven. With both swimmers turning together at the 25m mark, they were neck-and-neck all the way to the finish with Murray just pipping Szymon to the post in a time of 35.09 to Szymon’s 35.72. It was a great race that saw every Thame swimmer shouting them on all the way.

Marcus Birmingham brought the day to a close with a blistering 50m freestyle swim taking Gold in a time of 26.76.

All that was left was to wait for the final team results to come in … So can we all stand and give all 36 swimmers a big round of applause and congratulate them in becoming the 2016 Natalie Barry Open Champions. Yes we won!

A Thame Swiming Pool spokesperson said: “We would like to thank coaches Iain Phillips, Karen Powell and Lucy North and Team Manager Geraldine Dodds – along with all the officials and time keepers for making it possible for Thame to bring a fantastic squad to this worthwhile gala.”

SOURCE: Contributed by Iain Phillips –